Personal Narrative: Train Up A Child

My experiences working with children officially began in 2012 when I started working for One of A Kind Progressive Early Education. I worked with children of all ages, primarily toddlers and preschoolers. While working at One of A Kind, I assisted the lead teachers as much as possible. I helped develop daily routines of activities, lesson plans, nap, and toilet-training times that seemed most effective for the students. I worked with parents during pick up and drop off times to make sure they were happy with the schedule and care their child was receiving. I was in charge of maintaining a safe environment for the students at One of A Kind.

Like many people everyone wants to find their calling and figure out where they belong. My parents moved to the United States risking their lives on a boat from Haiti but soon separated while in america . My mom did a great job raising four kids on her own and I being the second child took part in raising my two younger siblings. In elementary school I struggled in many subjects but excelled in art, when I finally learned to read and went to middle school my grades were high enough to have honors reading and social study classes and even apa classes in highschool. I continued to excel in a lot of my classes, turns out I was smarter than I thought and all I need to do was learn to read and have people who took the time to teach me.

Maybe I was too little, or maybe I was too short, but either way I did not make the jump. In the second grade I was your average eight year old, who always wore her hair in ponytails, and enjoyed playing tag at recess. One day I saw the fifth graders on the monkey bars at recess doing something I had never seen before, they were jumping to the fourth bar. I waited untill Kids Inc. that day to try the jump, but it was no use I was acting like a scared baby.

As the famous Eleanor Roosevelt Once said, “You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” This is very true to my story. When I was little I thought that I would always go to my charter school, LCCS until I graduated to high school. I never thought that I would change schools, that thought never entered my mind until I heard about the Advanced Enrichment Program. Then all my visions of what it would be like to stay at LCCS were thrown out the window and I transferred all my effort into preparing to take the test to get in. This the story of how I tried my best to get in, even though I thought I couldn’t do it.

The Middle Tyger Community Center’s volunteer coordinator, Donna Dawkins, was very excited about my interest to volunteer with their This is My Child early education program. She was able to work me into the agency’s busy schedule and was also super understanding of my packed agenda and limited time. My first volunteer experience I spent in the one year old classroom. The teachers have a routine based schedule that is performed every day. Each student is to be dropped off, find their assign seat, eat breakfast, throw away their OWN trash, and then wait their turn for their health check. When their name is called, each of the children know what they are expected to do. He or she comes to the sink, brushes their teeth, and climbs up to the changing

Today was a hard day for me. I wasn’t feeling well when I got up this morning, but I push through and I’m glad that I did. There is one baby in the infant classroom that want go to anyone except for me; which make me feel good in a kind away. Mrs. Wright keep on trying to work with her, but she’s very slow to warm up to people. It will just have to take time for her to adjust to the teachers. Maybe next week once I’m not in the classroom she will start to warm up to them. I know for me at times it was hard hearing her cry for me, but I couldn’t do anything because I was attending to the other babies in the classroom. It was a challenge for me, but I got over it and learn how to multitask. I couldn’t go to planning with the teachers today

I came to Ridge Family Center for Learning in second grade. On top of being “the new kid” in school, I didn’t know anyone besides my neighbor. She had been going to this school since kindergarten and I ate lunch with her and her friends everyday. One day, as I ate my usual PB & J, she said “Are you excited for the musical?” Apparently it happens every year, yet I was not aware of this. Naturally, being a little kid, I was excited and screamed “Really? I love watching people perform!” My parents loved musicals and took me to see my fair share of them. She gave me a strange look and laughed. “You don’t get to watch. We’re performing on the stage, silly!” My jaw dropped. All I could think about was how scared I was. I was about to sing on stage in front of 200 parents.

I am a first generation child to have been born in my family, the first generation who is about to graduate high school and the first generation to go to a college and succeed in life.

I adore working with children. I devote a lot of my time to helping entertain and teach kids. My local church runs a summer program named ‘Sidewalk Kids Hours’ (SWKH). Through the past few years I have volunteered more than 150 hours to this program, as well as my local boy-scouts program. The majority of the time is spent preparing lessons, and creating props, instead of the two days a week we run the program. However, the majority of people who work with this programs are teens, so even though I am not working with children every day, I still enjoy every day I go in.

Hailey G. is a five-year-old girl. She is the second of three girls; her older sister is 13 and her younger sister is 3. She is half-Dominican and half Colombian. Her mother is from Colombia and her father is from the Dominican Republic. She has traveled to Colombia two times and went to the Dominican Republic for the first time in December 2016. When she learned she was going to D.R. she was very excited. She said that she had never been there and was so happy to go visit Abuelita. I reminded her that I used to live in D.R. before I moved here to the United States. When she came back from vacation, she brought my assistant, and I a souvenir. I really love the souvenir and it reminded me when I lived back home. Her paternal grandmother comes

As a junior this year and three season under my belt I am very happy with my decision to try something new. As a freshman I decided to go out for tennis. Luckily for me, the program at my high school was a feeding program so they don’t cut freshman because we are the future of the program. But it was my very good friend who got me to get out of my shell and try something new with her.

I am Gloria Castillo writing this letter on behalf of my daughter-in-law Maria Romero who is married to my son Valint Castillo. I have known Maria Romero for over seven years now and I see as my own daughter. I have seen daughter in-law and my son relationship has grown from the first moment I saw them till where that are now. Maria is a caring, smart, loving women that will do anything for my son and he would do anything for her.

When decorating my friend's nursery, I would want to focus on nurturing the growing senses of the newborn. Although a newborn’s vision is not at full capacity, their visual acuity starts improving soon after. By 2-3 months, infants are able to recognize patterns and faces; and are able to discriminate colors by around 4 months. This would inspire me to paint an accent wall with a pattern of the mother's preference, in bold colors that shade to a lighter color. I would add faces of animals and add pictures of the parents, possibly other siblings as accents in picture frames. A mobile is a must, as infants enjoy watching movement.

I was born in Austin, Texas as the youngest of my parent’s three children. My mother is from San Bernardino, California and is a Political Science professor at Texas State University. My father is from Temple, Texas and is a contract manager for the state of Texas’s Health and Human Services department. My two older sisters attend the University of Notre Dame, one is a freshman and the other is a senior. Having a mother that is a college professor has greatly impacted my life, mainly my education. With a desire for us to learn, my mother taught my sisters and me how to read, write, and how to do simple math at an early age. I excel in school and I always give the credit to my mom, since she instilled my love of learning. In the past father was in the army and was a police officer/ detective. Due to his years of service and law

The year was 2009. I lived out on a farm with my parents and little sister. I didn’t have too many traumatic things happen to me as a child. There were a few here and there but nothing serious. However, there was one event that truly was traumatic to 7-year old me.